A journal of weekly trips to various art museums and galleries in Chicago.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Maureen Gallace

Maureen Gallace "Summer Rainbow, Cape Cod (2006)

This pleasant little paintinghas the distinctionof being the onlynon-conceptual artin the collection ofDonna and Howard Stone now on exhibit at the Art Institute.

Nice, isn't it?

But remarkable?

No more so thanthousands of othergood contemporary landscapesI've seen over the last five years.

It only stands out in this showbecause everything else is so wacky.

Or, actually, not really wacky,more like boring,since conceptual art rests entirelyon the principle of authoritywhich is rather basicto humans as a social animal.

The blank canvasis only importantif an important persondesignates it as such.

The contents of anyone'spocket or purseis far more interestingthan the entireDonna and Howard Stone Collection.

But in searching back over the past 50 years,it looks like this exhibitis the very firstprivate collectionof contemporary artto go on display at the A.I.C..

Is that one reasonwhy the museum built the Modern Wing?

So it could validatethe contemporary collectionsof board members?

Note: Maureen Gallace was also the only landscape painter to have a one-person exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago since 1980. (and maybe even earlier than that - my research just didn't go back any further)

0 Comments:

About Me

I live life dangerously by ignoring the advice of Chuang Tzu: "Your life has a limit but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger". Badly spoiled by my wife, I spend mornings in sculpture studio, afternoons in record shop, evenings on the internet, weekends at the Palette and Chisel Academy and Art Institute of Chicago, and, the time spent in between, reading world literature. Am currently focused on the Middle East and South Asia.